Books
by Gordon Neufeld and the Neufeld Institute Faculty
Explore the written works that bring the Neufeld approach to life.
From the best-selling Hold On to Your Kids to books by Neufeld Institute faculty, these resources offer insight, guidance, and an attachment-based developmental lens for understanding children — and ourselves.
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers
This book, written by Dr. Gordon Neufeld, is about the pivotal importance of children’s relationships to those responsible for them and the devastating impact in today’s society of competing attachments with peers.
However, it is much more than a book on peer orientation: it is about parenting with relationship in mind.
This book restores parents to their natural intuition, confronting such relationship-devastating devices as time-outs and using what children care about against them.
Rest, Play, Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers (Or Anyone Who Acts Like One)
Based on the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld, this book, written by Dr. Deborah MacNamara, offers a road map to making sense of young children, and is what every toddler, preschooler, and kindergartener wishes we understood about them.
“This book is a tribute to Deborah’s giftedness … you could not be in better hands,” Dr. Neufeld says.
Reclaiming Our Students: Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down Than Ever — And What We Can Do About It
By Hannah Beach & Tamara Strijack
Children are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever. Faced with this epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioural problems, teachers are asking themselves what went wrong. Why have we lost our students? More importantly, how can we get them back? Reclaiming Our Students is a thoughtful guide to restoring the student-teacher relationship and creating the conditions for change, written by Hannah Beach, celebrated educator and specialist in emotional health, and Tamara Neufeld Strijack, clinical counsellor and academic dean of the acclaimed Neufeld Institute — with a foreword by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. Reclaiming Our Students empowers teachers with relationship-based strategies to restore their leadership role and build emotional safety in the classroom.
Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring For Our Kids (and everyone else we love)
What does it mean to be nourished? Nothing could be more basic than food. However, food is only one part of the concept of nourishment, but it has consumed our focus and eclipsed something far more critical for thriving — connection. We have lost sight of the fact that feeding our families is about human relationship and emotional well-being. In Nourished, developmental and relational clinical counsellor Dr. Deborah MacNamara shows us how feeding is part of the caretaking relationship and cannot be separated from it.
The Sorry Plane
Children’s Book by Dr. Deborah MacNamara
When Molly accidentally breaks a balloon she and her sister Lucy have found, Lucy demands an apology. But, as Molly describes in fanciful, imaginative scenarios, her sorries are all gone: hiding under the bed, down the sink, off to Paris on the Sorry Plane. As their mother explains, we can’t say sorry if we don’t have any sorries in us. But when our sorries return, as Molly’s eventually do, we can give them to others. Brilliantly illustrated with captivating images by artist Zoe Si, The Sorry Plane carries a profound message about the importance of connecting with our authentic emotions. It highlights how a good sorry is one that you mean from the heart and how adults can preserve a child’s caring spirit.
Neufeld Institute Children’s Book List
By The Neufeld Institute
The Neufeld Institute’s carefully curated Children’s Literature Recommendations is a rich 68-page PDF guide to nearly 350 thoughtfully selected titles. Rooted in Dr. Neufeld’s attachment-based developmental approach, this annual booklet helps parents and professionals find books that nurture connection, emotion, and growth in children of all ages. From picture books to young adult novels, and even stories to enjoy together as a family, this resource is organized around key themes like attachment, play, emotional expression, and life’s special challenges. All proceeds support the Gail Eleanor Carney Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Upcoming Scheduled Classes
Some of our courses are also offered as scheduled classes from time to time with our Faculty providing weekly live special support sessions. If you already have taken the course in its self-paced version, you can enrol in the scheduled class for a fee of only 50 CAD.
Power to Parent II — Helping Children Grow Up
Classes Start: March 31, 2026
Tuesdays 10:00AM – 11:00AM PT
Runs for 8 weeks
With Heather Ferguson and Celena Krahn
$250 CAD
Part II of the Power to Parent gets to the heart of developmental science — that growth happens quite spontaneously if conditions are conducive. Neufeld expands on just what those conditions are and the role of parents in the maturing processes. Since growing older is no guarantee of growing up, knowing what children truly need from their parents is key to raising children.
Play & Emotion
Classes Start: April 2, 2026
Thursdays 10:00 – 11:30AM PT
Runs for 8 weeks
With Tamara Strijack and Jodi Bergman
$250 CAD
Neufeld puts the puzzle pieces together to reveal true play as Nature's way of taking care of emotion. This realization makes sense of the trouble we are now in, as the culture that was meant to take care of play has largely been lost. These insights are distinct to this approach and key to supporting healthy development and emotional well-being in our children and ourselves.
Adolescence & Sexuality
Classes Start: April 8, 2026
Wednesdays: 1:00 – 2:00 PM PT
Runs for 4 weeks
With Lisa Weiner and Robin Brooks-Sherriff
$150 CAD
Today's adolescents live in a hypersexualized culture. Despite their greater exposure and education, current evidence suggests that many youth are in trouble sexually and that their sexual development is not unfolding as it should.
Making Sense of Preschoolers
Classes Start: April 14, 2026
Tuesdays 5:30 – 6:30PM PT
Runs for 6 weeks
No one is more susceptible to being misunderstood than the preschooler — especially when adults are trying to rush them out of their untempered nature, inconsiderate relating, or separation problems.
Making Sense of Hypersensitivity
Classes Start: April 29, 2026
Wednesdays 10:00 – 11:30 AM PT
Runs for 7 weeks
With Jule Epp and Karen Bollman
$250 CAD
This course provides a fresh look at the causes and consequences of sensory overload in the brain and its role in a spectrum of syndromes, including autism, and to a lesser extent, some forms of giftedness as well as attention problems.
Inquiries
If you have questions or require additional information that you cannot find on our website or FAQ page, you may contact our office on our Inquiries page.
Charity & Non-Profit Status
The Neufeld Institute is a registered Canadian charitable organization under the name Neufeld Institute Foundation and is also registered as a NPO in British Columbia. If you would like to make a contribution to us, please go to our donation page.
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